Are Environments Their Own Characters?

Settings are one of the more overlooked aspects of fiction, in any medium, it would seem. Most of the time, critics (including myself when I do reviews), or even teachers, will overlook the important elements of setting in a story. The setting is just meant to be where the characters exist to do their thing and it allows for the story to take place in a believable way. Many would present the story as just that: the presentation. Yet if setting, and in particular environments, are so unimportant, why do we remember so many of them?
Think about some of the most popular settings in fiction. Gotham City, Metropolis, futuristic/ apocalyptic settings on Mars, the Walls from Attack on Titan, the list can go on. All of these settings have memorable characters and moments. Even real life cities seem to be glanced over compared to the stories and characters involved in them. Spider-Man is from New York and while the New York attitude sometimes comes into effect, you rarely feel like you're in New York City. This is something I'll get into a little later.

Environments, however, are probably the most key element to telling any story. Think of your favorite fantasy novel. If it's done well and well-crafted, you can't just copy and paste those characters and that story into a different environment, because none of it would add up. What if the main characters from The Walking Dead were actually in Montana or something? While the locations that they use in the comic and TV series are real, they're displayed in a newer way. The emphasis is much more on the characters, but the vibrant places Rick's group gets lead to are memorable. The wars that go on are never labeled as "leader vs. leader," but rather by their environment.

To focus in on The Walking Dead a little more, the environments shape the story and the events of it. Whether you like it or not, each season can be remember by the new area that the crew went to and the experiences they had. There wasn't any issue with a walker in a well when they were at the prison just as there weren't issues of maintaining a stable set of crops while they were huddled outside of Atlanta. Each environment made itself known, and almost made the characters act in such a way that you believed the environments had their own sensibility.

Obviously, it's rare that they're sentient. Sure there's the living planet Oa in the Green Lantern lore (yeah, it's totally a thing, it's awesome!) and there was that time Ultron consumed the Saturn moon Titan (again...awesome!), so in that sense, environments were literally characters. But I'm talking about the moments, somewhat haunting, that make you think something is up with this place, and the characters have a relationship with it.

This is most evident in super-hero comics so I'll skip over that in place of something else: video-games.

Now, don't get me wrong, an environment alone isn't worth very much. There needs to be history established and various people there to inhabit it and make it's own character. A house in a video-game is just a house, but you suddenly add that there's a monstrosity sitting beneath the house and all of a sudden the wood seems to be creaking a little more on the floorboards, and that statue just might be following you. It may in fact be that those things aren't happening, but the environment is crafted in such a way that you feel this house closing in on you.

A major innovation in gaming is the scale at which developers can make these games. You can track characters across dozens of miles in the game world and just follow them to see where they go, or where they end up. These environments feel more real and feel as if they would respond to you as a character may. In the "Dark Souls" series and Bloodborne, the environments feel so much like real characters. A standout in this, in the original Dark Souls, is Blighttown, arguably one of the most frustrating areas of the game. The level is designed to kill you, even more than the others. It's full of dangerous pit-falls, enemies that can one-shot you, and narrow passageways to force you into a fight you simply can't win when pinned against the wall. Blighttown is a living environment. It wants to hurt you, it wants to be your enemy. Blighttown, in many ways, it it's own boss battle.

Environments, in good games, seem to get their character when you can feel a sense of a fight. In Dark Souls 3, my favorite area is Anor Londo. Not because of the rich lore history there (although that is pretty sweet), but because it's constructed in a way that there is so much contrast going on within the area. Anor Londo is the shining city of the gods and is a beautiful freaking area in the game. It's a visual masterpiece. And the soldiers there are also pretty tough, and are probably the best looking in the game. What's the boss that awaits you?

A monstrosity the likes of which people formed a cult religion around: Aldritch, Devourer of Gods!

Oh yeah, Aldritch is gross. His slime is all over the battle ground, he makes one of his devoured gods fight for him, he has a giant spider-thing guard his doors along with fat priests, it's gross!

But it works. I never felt jarred by the encounter with Aldritch or the giant spider or the soldiers because the environment and atmosphere sucked me and made me afraid for my life while traversing this building that I should have been gawking over. Instead I was dodging arrows and getting sliced up by enemies I was insane to fight in the first place (and my character got married...ish). Anor Londo felt like it's own character in the game much like how Blighttown did in the original game.

Environments are most active and have the most amount of participation in comic books, though, specifically with super-heroes. Heck, Gotham isn't titled "Jim Gordon's Misadventures" because the show is about the city of Gotham. Gotham has grown into it's own characters over the years and has spawned so many imitators that people just glance over how mean, vile, and yet stupendous that city is. When people think "Gotham" they think of two things: one is a characteristic, and the other is Batman.

Crime. Fear. Anarchy. And in a strange way, hope. Those are all contrasting things, and yet, aren't our best characters comprised of contrast? Gotham city is in many ways in conflict with itself all the time. Is crime up or down? How are the people feeling, and will the city respond?

While the public thinks Superman is this incredibly boring, one-dimensional character, I argue that he's pretty complex and fun. Metropolis, though, seems to be what the public eye is. Gotham and Metropolis are to what Superman and Batman are, but neither city is flat or boring. Metropolis is an interesting environment because you're never sure what this city will produce next. It's a weird, freaky place. Other good examples of this are Star City, Central City, Bludhaven, and Coast City. All work not because of the super-heroes that inhabit these cities, but because they have such a flavorful personality to them.

But what about real cities? Well, that's where we get into something of an environmental problem. See, Spider-Man does have some great interactions with New York, but would you really notice if he suddenly moved somewhere else? It seems that L.A. in super-hero comics, at least what I've read, always has to place emphasis on the Hollywood aspects of things. If that's the case how come we're never emphasizing the Broadway element of New York?

When real cities are used, it's tough to make them their own environments; even though in real life, they do have their own environments! As great as the Marvel Cinematic Universe is, you never remember the settings for what they are, but rather the events that happen surrounding them. We go to New York several times during the Marvel movies but never get to know the city. Sekovia is only used to introduce Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver and then to be dropped on the Earth like a hot potato. Asgard doesn't even have it's own flavor in the MCU besides the Bifrost Bridge.

And yet the set pieces in Guardians of the Galaxy seem to leap to life without any effort because the environments just jump out at the characters and it informs both their character and the environments. The prison break isn't just memorable for the action but for the time we sat there developing the prison and understanding how it worked. I think if Black Panther places emphasis on T'Challa's relationship with his kingdom, Wakanda, we can see another great environment open up.

So, in many respects, yes, environments are their own characters if done right. They can grow and develop just as any other character can. Sometimes the environments are more interesting than the characters...sometimes writers or directors want to place more emphasis on the environment themselves! The Lord of the Rings is, really, just another blip on the map for Tolkein in Middle Earth. There's been three whole other ages of history prior to these events! Gotham City, long before Batman came along, was a living environment, locked in a conspiracy with the Court of Owls. These elements help bring settings and environments to a whole new level, and can really help you appreciate the story unfold, and maybe even understand it a little more.

Unless it's the "Souls" series or Bloodborne because everything is so DANG VAGUE...
love those games tho...


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